bweSteve

Since I had just created that other post on the Hilton Head SC Auction $605k Barn Find,.. and added that my wife & missed out on a really cool Speedster,... I thought,.. why not post a pic, since it was SO cool for my wife & I to sit in it & pretend it was ours.... pic below..

I also think this one was kinda unique given it was built in Dec '55 and has the pre-A body. Car # 81132. There's some Porsche history out there that talks to when the company used to take their end of Model Year vacations & plant shutdown. I believe prior to 1956 they used to take it much closer to the end of the calendar year in Oct / Nov. So I believe 1955 was the last year that they did that. Then in 1956, they moved it to the August / September months. So this car would have been part of the last group of pre-A Speedsters built in that last holiday vacation timeframe, before the change for the company. Correct me if I'm wrong on that. I love cool stories on Porsche history (books & books on my shelves about the Porsche Family History, collected when I was a teenager prove it)

So this car was very cool because it had a model year on the vin plate as 1956, but has all the pre-A body & parts on it. I'm sure the family won't mind if I hint as to who it was,... since the car has now been sold to a local motorcycle shop owner in Falls Church who has made the same promise to the family that my wife & I made,... and that is to KEEP it, and DRIVE it,.. and not flip it. So it is in good hands & we should see it on the road soon. The owner raced the car too. Owner local celebrity & local Wash DC Morning Anchor on ABC News in the '80's, and his buddy Chick Stanton raced it back in the day. Some VERY cool pictures of those guys hang on the wall in the room where it's sat cocooned for probably 30+ years now. My wife & I love the whole story, and really wish we could have bought & revived the car,... brought it to shows, and driven it on PCA drives. He did such a wonderful job with the engine when he put it up for storage too. I checked the oil & it was cleanr & fresh as new, and it turned over easy by hand too. All the gas was drained from tanks, lines & Solex's, and the car has basically zero rust. So cool. I felt privileged to just even see & sit in it.

They are friends of our family, and we were given a chance to make an offer. But alas, the final price point was just too far out of our financial reach. My wife & I are getting up there in years, and a 356 Speedster was of course a dream to own & drive. Oh well, guess this is just like the air-cooled 911's too. All the ones I owned in my past would fetch a healthy dollar these days. Heck even the 914's & 912's which I thought were the lowly end of the Porsche spectrum, I would love to have back & sell now. But of course I KNOW that if I still owned them, I would never sell, and herein lies my problem (Lol).

Take care folks. ENJOY those cars of yours!!
=Steve

doublecabmel

great post! Was this silver car a 1500 engine or a 1600 engine? It's right around that time when it changed

bweSteve

My original post #3 here, on the engine year & size was incorrect. See my post #4 for correction.

doublecabmel; Yea, those are some crazy low numbers on these cars.

I claim no perfect accuracy on this info,... but I was poking around the 356 Registry and found these numbers that I jotted down:

Pre-A Speedsters = some '55's up to some '59's (Total Model A's = 2,910)

... Qty 100 were '55 T1's built in 1956

... Qty 1,056 were '56 T2's built in '56

... Qty 579 were '57 T1's built in '56

... Qty 591 were '57 T1's built in '57

... Qty 552 were '58 T2's built in '58

... Qty 32 were '59 T2's built in '59

VIN #'s 80201 -thru- 81234 were 1955's

VIN #'s 82001 -thru- 83156 were 1956's

So this car was pretty unique given it was built in Dec '55 and has pre-A hardware.

Cool eh!!
=S

bweSteve

Oh Btw, I do not believe this car was silver back when new. My notes are showing that this was the color "elfenbein" (light ivory or white).

Correction on the engine info: Referring back to my notes, I mis-spoke above. The engine currently in the car is a 1963 or 1964 SC 616/16 engine.

And the engine that the car came originally was a 1600 Normal engine serial number P-60329.

=Steve

bweSteve

well, even though no one is asking,... a few more pics here just for curiosities...

jcnesq

Speaking of the one that got away, I came within a very small hair of buying this '61 cab in 1966 or so, buddy was selling it. Ended up waiting 27 years for my first Porsche ('93 RS America) and 40 years for my first 356. Found the pictures going through an old box of photos.